Christianity Oasis Forum

[Netchaplain]

Note: I occasionally let viewers know that the comments I include in these articles are not intended to be accepted necessarily as what the authors mean but that I’m just sharing my opinion of what they mean to me. Thanks and God bless!



The chief glory of the Lord Jesus is His redemptive work which the Father sent Him to effect via the “translation” of the soul and spirit of believers “into the kingdom of His dear Son” (Col 1:13); and the terminus of this completion will be at the translation or redemption also “of our body” (Rom 8:3; 1Thes 4:16, 17; 1Co 15:52). The Lord Jesus gives eternal life (Jhn 10:28) only to those whom He knows that will “believe” (v 26), which are those whom He knows are His “sheep” (v 27). These are those whom “shall never perish” (v 28).

Whatever our present understanding is concerning our beliefs, God increases our understanding of them, which encourages us in our difficulties (trials and infirmities), freeing us to be more mindful of the Lord Jesus and of where we will be with Him. Let us be encouraged to know that Christians are not alone in this universe because we are now and forever connected in union with the Father, the Son and Their Holy Spirit—and with all who are in Them. May it stand as an encouraging welcome to the unbeliever to know that without the Spirit, you are now and could be forever alone, not being literally united to another’s spirit—through the Spirit. As believers are in God, they are also in one another!
NC





All New Environment


Every truth has its own peculiar effect, one which no other truth could produce, any more than one kind of tree could produce the fruit of another. In practice the lack of any truth can be discovered, and even where truth has been learned, the measure of its acceptance is tested and disclosed by the way in which it is practically manifested (walked in—NC).

The glory of the Lord Jesus is an admitted truth with every believer, but if we really knew Him in glory, it would impart to us its own mark. We are conversant with man in death and sin and distance from God, for that is our own state by nature; but to know a Man in glory, One in acceptance with the Father according to all His moral greatness, is new to us and magnificent; and according as we know Him there we become not only superior to, or distanced from our own state as men, but morally suited to the glory with which we are associated—“hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3 – not understood by unbelievers, thus “hid”—NC).

There is not clear and full deliverance form man’s ruin, or conscious admission into the divine order, until one knows the Lord Jesus in glory. Until the believer knows Him in glory, which is the expression of the Father’s satisfaction according to His own attributes, he has not the distinct sense of belonging to a Man in glory (though eternally united with Him “through faith” – Eph 2:8—NC), and as being separate from the man on earth, though still in the body.

A man might feel himself thoroughly rescued from ruin, and yet if his surroundings were not altered, he would still associate himself with an order of things in which his ruin occurred; but if he were transferred to the position of his Deliverer (conscientiously aware of heaven being presently possessed—NC) he would be in an order of things in which no trace of his ruin could appear. One may be fully assured of peace, and yet connect it with earth and the things here; he is rescued from judgment and he knows it, but he rises no further than the completeness of the Savior’s work through death and resurrection (does not progress beyond the point of salvation, i.e. “leaving principles of the doctrine of Christ,” - Heb 6:1; Eph 4:15; Rom 8:2—NC), and he still relates all His mercy with the place in which it found him.

But if he knows his Savior in the glory of the Father, he is not only assured of his own safety, but of his personal acceptance because of the Father’s satisfaction, of which the glory testified. In order to enjoy the Father’s satisfaction in the Savior, in the Person who wrought the work, I must be connected with the glory (in my understanding it more all the time—NC). I may through faith see the Father’s satisfaction about my debt, my sins; but this, though known, requires to be repeated (faith consciously reestablished, which is unnecessary, seeing salvation ever abides—NC) in order to ensure enjoyment and assurance. Whereas when I am in union (knowing the present and permanent fellowship—NC) with the Person who paid my debt, where the Father’s satisfaction is expressed, I am home and established there—my citizenship is in heaven (e.g. Phl 3:20).

No matter what has been done for me, as long as I remain in the place where I needed the mercy (still at the beginning of my salvation and not maturing—NC), I must relate everything done for me with the place of my need; but if I were transferred to the place and greatness of my Savior I should not only rejoice in my salvation but I should enjoy it in a scene where there could be no check or abatement of it. Then I know what it is to be “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph 1:6), where I am supremely apart from the scene of my ruin. Hence there cannot be a full realization of divine deliverance or of personal acceptance but as I abide in the Lord Jesus in glory.

It is as I see Him by faith where He is, and realize my union with Him through the Spirit, that I am enabled by Him to be like Him as He was here, where I am still. I draw from Him in His exaltation, and as I do, I act and walk as He acted and walked when He was here in humiliation, when His heart is made known to me. The thought that one can be like Him by observing Him in the Gospels (i.e. in the Gospels only, but not the growth Epistles—NC) is at the root an assumption that there is power in oneself to appropriate His perfections without union. The Gospel narrative tells me how He walked and loved me, but I am only enabled to follow His steps and understand Him as I am in union and fellowship with Him (the Gospels disclose salvation, and the Epistles disclose walking in it via growth in Christ - Eph 4:15—NC). Then I walk as He walked, and His Life will be manifested in me in a similar way as it was in Himself on earth.

— J G Stoney